It has been a very long time since I posted on this or any other forum for a variety of reasons, the main one being just not enough time in a day to do everything. Last year, on my way to the US FT Nationals, my truck was broken into in a smash and grab, and my competition FT rig was stolen. It was an awful mess of a break in and I am sure some *&^*%&*%%*% got his latest fix for it. I will most likely never see or hear of it again, which is so sad. However, you pay insurance premiums for those situations and today, I put the finishing touches on its replacement so that the setup process can begin once again. For those that have not done a scope distance and click setup, it is a step by step climb up a never ending ladder, as you take your measurements, try to use some click chart created by a woefully in adequate program, and then attempt to blend the two together. If this was the early part of spring, this would take the better part of a week from start to finish, but at this time of the year, I might be lucky to get three or four meaningful distances done per visit and it will be dragged out into months, sigh. This rifle is the full powered version at 24J and right out of the box, it sent Barakuda Match 10.6gr. pellets over the chronograph at 909fps average and JSB Heavies at 926fps average. That is right at the top putting out 19.65fpe.

There are many variables to getting a rig like this set up, as the first thing is to do is to get a zero distance and make sure the scope is perpendicular to the bore. Next is to find its short range click setting, then move on to the tuning of the barrel harmonics at long distance. This rifle from the factory rest, produced a group of around a half in at 50 meters with Barakuda Match 10.6gr. pellets and that is with no tuning done at all. No muzzle compensator, no barrel weights, and only one pellet tried out in a brand new barrel. I found JSB Heavies to be much more consistent in my old Steyr LG100 and Exacts are the perfect diet for my other Steyrs, so I am hoping that this will continue. I think I had put more than 10 cases of pellets through the first rifle and there is nothing better than shooting lots of lead to smooth out a barrel and settle it in. It may take a few cases to get this one settled but I sure hope not.

For those of you wondering the parts as you see them, the rifle is the latest version of the LG100 FT 24j rifle. The butt plate has been updated with the latest MEC Free Position hooked butt however, I am not using the hook portion. The fore end is going to be changed to a quick adjustable unit that I designed a few years ago and used on my old rifle and is currently in use on my 12fpe rifle. The riser is angled to help with trajectory setup and the rings are Badger Ordnance standard .823" high. The scope is the same as the one I bought for my 12fpe rifle, having the lit, FT Dot reticule on the second focal plane, the bullet drop compensator turret, large sidewheel, sunshade, and turret cap. The barrel weights are on their for looks right now and so is the front air stripper/compensator. They wil be added as needed to tune the rifle for utmost accuracy. The lever at the front of the receiver is one I designed for use with a sling but it will be most likely be retired with the sling. Here are some pictures of it before the first day at the range with it. Take care and see you at one of the matches.

Well, the process has begun. Nice to see you and Dean setting up your Steyrs. Early results look promising. Picking the best pellet, then fine tuning the weights and stripper can take some time for sure. The way I look at it, trigger time is a good time. Keep having fun!

Thanks guys. The shooting got better for both of us once I brought in my 130CF tank as it had lots of pressure. I went through at least a quarter fill with my 12fpe rifle and two tanks with my new rig before it became too cold and loud in the range. This rifle is every bit as accurate as the previous one, and maybe even a bit more so. The 12fpe Steyr is something to drool over in its capabilities at long distance and I will be the only reason that I will miss a shot. Both rifles stack pellet on top of pellet at short distances but that is where the setup is even more critical when dealing with small KZ's. I am going to be keeping an eye on the temps and once it starts to climb out of the single digits, I'll be going as often as I can make it to the range to finish both rifles. I may need more pellets for the 24j, lol. Take care.

Sweet shooter Don...
It certainly was a pleasure to see you fellows again...
Don, you weren't kidding about having to put pellets through the barrel before seeing the groups shrink with consistency and predictability.. Started to see that happen at the 52yard mark yesterday and now I'm getting excited...

I added this pointer to both of my new scopes as I had on my previous S&B FT. It is a piece of piano wire that is ground into a very fine blade and inserted into a piece of fibre re-enforced plastic. That is simply wedged into place and brought as close to the turret as possible without snagging the Scotch tape that protects the label. The second picture is the reticule but that is the magnified center section and not the entire thing. The scale below can be used to estimate the size of something covered by any given part of that reticule. Personally, in five+ years of using the scope, I have never found the time to apply the measuring capability of the reticule. Take care.

I seldom delete anything from my computer so making up the tape was a simple matter of calibrating the output of the printer to the diameter of the turret. Each printer will have minor changes in the software used to drive the print head, so even though I had all sizes of my tapes set for printing out on the old unit I had, the new one was printing it slightly larger and the output had to be adjusted in Photoshop. Easy but a bit time consuming for two of these tapes. I have seldom seen another scope with the cut-out like the one in the S&B. When you have a chance to take a look through that scope, you will see that the lit portion of the reticule is not that large at all, maybe one third of the entire reticule. I couldn't find the full drawing but if I do, I'll post it so you can see the proportion difference. Take care.

I created the entire image in Photoshop. All my target designs were done in it as well. I got to know my way around the program quite well and I used multiple layers to make up the side-wheel tapes and did some of the turret tapes that way as well. All my target designs were done with multiple layers so I could see the final image and use the line drawing to do the outline on steel plate for the cut-outs and various different portions of the character. It's a pretty powerful program for designs like that and realistically, Microsoft paint could be used as well. I created an elaborate scaffold cut and paste layout drawing that I used to build a large scaffold with the picture, hand that out to the men working for me, and they never made any errors in layout as with those drawings, they could see what it was supposed to look like as a final product. Take care.